The noise comes nearer. Thanks to the tight
brushwood he only sees what it is at the last moment. Tork jumps up, not
capable of suppressing a joyful cheer.

Its nose
against the ground the large Wolfhound approaches slowly. Barg has found him! As
soon as the dog sees he storms wild towards him and Tork falls down his knees
laughing.

- ‘Barg’ he
whispers moved. ‘Did you abandon the rucksack or are you chased away?’ The dog
barks shortly, turns around and jumps up; upbeat and relieved.

- ‘Yet we are
together again, boy, but we have nothing to eat or drink. It won’t be easy.’
Barg barks if he understands and breaks immediately through the bushes while he
looks back to encourage him.

Tork follows
and Barg smoothens a way indefatigable until he holds on a path; a track to the
left, in the direction of the plain. Tork decides to follow. Maybe he brings
them to water or food. He has nothing to catch even the smallest rabbit but he
trusts on the dog that helped him often before.

Before they
reach the plain another track crosses that bends to the south and the dog trots
without hesitating to the right to follow the wider path. After almost a mile they
find a narrow creek where the track goes straight through and from which the
water is drinkable. Kneeled next to the swallowing dog Tork quenches his thirst;
if he only could take something but he has nothing to store. He searches abortive
for anything to eat and yet he is satisfied. Their thirst quenched and he feels
a whole lot better when he jumps the narrow stream after Barg.

The dog leads
them out of the forest, back to the plain, quite a distance from the spot where
they started, and more or less parallel to the track they find the path to the
Gods. Before Tork left the wood he picked up a torn down branch that he uses to
kick the long grass why the walking goes even easy without his heavy equipment.

Not far from
the fringe Tork sits down on a weathered trunk. The situation seems hopeless. He
is alone. The equipment lost and
with that the capsules. Maybe he finds something to eat in the wood but
he is aware of Underearth’s dangers and besides Perlwachter didn’t give him so
many supplies out of luxury. He can’t go back to the bush where Barg waits. The demons will never let him pass. Except
perhaps a longer route over the plain, yet the chance is quite big that he gets
lost…, but can he leave Barg behind?

Tork looks
around despondent. He misses Gabi. Her death was quick and probably painless and
maybe it’s better if he thinks of what will wait him: sudden death in stead of slowly
through malnutrition and exhaustion.

He stands up
and looks over the plain. Does he have a chance if he finds the bush? The risk
is big and he doesn’t know if his gear is still there… so close to the stage. The
demons know that he had help..., he has to try to save the dog!

Undecided he
looks in the back and gazes into the dark vegetation. Better to investigate
first if something to eat grows here.

Gabi’s dead was
his luck, he thinks bitter. It arranged enough confusion to give him a small vantage
which is never enough to reach the forest in time. The first missiles land
around him and it is pure chance that he is still not hit. Prickles in his side
are about to cripple him and he dares a quick look over his shoulder; immediately
he stops and erects surprised. The chasers have stopped and shout in a long row,
their weapons high above their heads. They were not far when they gave up. Why
don’t they catch him?

Up and down
jumping he challenges. What new trap will it be this time? He stares suspicious
at the forest, gazes with a hand above his eyes, but there is nothing to see.
Is their territory restricted or limited?

Tork is about
to jubilate. That it has to be! Yet once he looks at his attackers, then he
turns and runs calmly towards the wood fringe where he turns again. The plain desolate,
no demon visible anymore.

Tork grabs her
just in time. She would have been fallen thanks to the sudden sling. He takes
the stone from her and the girl descends.

In spite of the
almost unbearable pain that gives him the feeling that his arm is split from
his body, he cuts himself loose and falls backwards down. The blow in which he
hits the ground takes his breath and it feels as if his ribs pick straight
through his lungs when he stumbles up painfully stiff.

Gabi bends over
worried, but he waves her aside.

- ‘We have to
leave!’

When they want
to slide from the hill it is being stormed from three sides. Scared Gabi stands
up, what becomes fatal. With a lot of noise all kinds of materials buzz through
the air. Tork yet tries to grab her to pull her aside when a long shaft with razor-sharp
tip hits between her shoulders. The weapon so powerful thrown that it lances
her. Straight through the hart Gabi drops death in the grass.

Tork has to
roll away in order not to be hit while rage takes over. He should want to fight
the whole troop but with what chance?

Bended he runs
over the flat summit in search for a way out. In good faith he rolls down there
where no demon climbs up. It could have been steepness and his death but Tork is
lucky. Rolling he lands between some bushes that scratch him what he hardly
feels. Not more then a breather. The demons will fast enough understand where
he hides. Desperate he looks around. In front of him the plain with behind it a
forest; too far to reach in time but his only chance.

Without thinking he breaks
through the bushes, runs downhill and zigzags bended towards the plain. Also
without turning he knows that the chase is on. He hears the wild shouting that
seems far still, but nears quickly.

The world too
large and certainly underneath the earths’ surface no-one will look for him. He
shall be listed inglorious as a disconcerting disappearance. Someone who left
but never returned. “Didn’t we always say so? It had to happen once!”

Sudden a soft
sound behind him and he feels how something pulls at the left foot shackle. He
distorts his head again to see; blurred, blond curls.

- ‘Gabi?’ he
asks hopefully.

- ‘Silent Lord,
otherwise they hear you.’

- ‘You’re not
dead! They didn’t catch you! Where is Barg?’ Sentences stumble upon each other and
the girl reports softly while she bungles the rigid fibers.

She saw no-one
as long as she waited in the bush and because it took that long she became afraid,
went to investigate and left the dog with the equipment. Carefully she skulked
towards the parquet and followed the edge through the grass till at the curtain
where she could look down between the long stems without being seen. She heard
about his capture and when she understood that they crucified him on the hill she
skulked back and found him.

Tork feels that
it doesn’t work. The dry, tied fibers resist her attempts without problem and
he tells her to look for a sharp stone in order to lumber the shackles.

She leaves
silent, returns and then it goes fast. Just because the material is dry and tidily
strained the fibers break after a few cuts. The left one snaps, the right one
follows. Torks’ legs hang straight down but it is impossible for Gabi to reach
the wrists. She tries to climb the iron palisade but doesn’t succeed.

Tork tells her to
use him as a ladder and bares the pain to endure her extra weight. With her
feet firmly around his hips she bends aside for the right wrist which loosens immediately
after some cuts.

Tork stares obstinate
at the collection monsters which all seem to come from hell. Do they really
think that he will defend himself? His
silence is enough apparantly.

- ‘Precise!’ the
snake goes on. ‘You will be removed after which we shall discuss your destiny. That
will be death without doubt, but the way to do so we have to discuss together
and in wisdom. As soon as our opinion is formed you will be brought back again after
which the verdict shall be performed immediately.’ Tork is being grabbed and
pushed outside where dozens of hands drag him rough along, back to the stage, behind
the curtain and then hill upwards, where in the mean time a metal palisade has
been erected.

A free floating
square of welded tubes on which he is being hanged with spread arms and legs, wrists
and ankles with raw fiber knotted to the four corners so that he hangs free, painful
stretched.

As soon as the torturers
have done their job they leave. He hangs abandoned in the hash light, without
guards. Why also? Where can he go?’

His muscles crack,
his shoulders feel if they are twice as big and his legs seem burning stilts. There
is no chance that he will get away without help which will be when they come
back to take him. Tork dislocates his neck in an attempt to look around but
because this only causes more pain he leaves his head hanging and gives up. So
this is how the end looks like. Forgotten underneath the earth in hands of
demons that god knows what intending to do with him.

He thinks of people he knows who
will miss him up there but who won’t search for him because they know him. Perhaps
when he is still missing in a month, the first will ask themselves where he is.
It can take weeks before someone does a statement. Where do they have to look? He
didn’t tell anyone where he went.

They lift him
and throw him from the stage to be caught by tens of others. Now he sees that
the construction is hollow underneath.

He is pushed
into the twilight till in front of a long table where at least thirty creatures
sit behind: one even more gruesome than another. Some of them he recognizes,
like the snake that killed Fern, and the ball, as flat as a pancake when he saw
it the last time. The beaked legs are absent but in its place are others that
aren’t less horrible.

- ‘We are your
judges’ a voice grates while Tork is forced to kneel. ‘We will accuse you and determine your sentence.’

The snake
stands up, arises at least, so that he stretches out extensively above the
others.

- ‘We accuse
you to have entered Underearth unlawful to slender, dishonor and wound us. I
myself have been escaped from Safedestiny in the nick of time when you used
your dog as a weapon against me. You
stole unprecedented amounts of food. Not only in town but also outside, and
inside you stirred up the inhabitants against the Gods and proclaimed anarchy which
is even for us hard to restrain. Besides you are responsible for the death of the
persons Anna and Gabi.’

Tork scares.
Anna dead? She was curing when he left? And Gabi? They have found her! What
happened to Barg? Like he knows the dog it will have fought till the end to
protect her. He bends his head. Silent tears fall down his cheeks.

- ‘I see that
you plea guilty’ the snake responds, ‘but there is more. You enthroned the
rightful rulers in an underhanded way and demanded the throne for yourself; something
that in itself already justifies the change to Safedestiny. On top of that you revealed
secrets that came into your possession thanks to that post. What do you have to
say to these acquisitions?’

Tork tries to
find someone who wants to answer his questions but halts on apotheoses as if
they are all in trance. The people seem to be in a ban of mass psychosis with
him as cause and will only hear what they expect: he, the man on the mountain, the
savior and them the blindly following herd. Human, born to be slave. Heroes or Gods, mankind wants to kneel and
pious look up towards what they worship. What can he do to break this trance and
maybe reach a couple of individuals that will answer his questions?

Tork tries
again and this time he only addresses the first rows because that’s where he
recognizes individual faces: ‘Listen!’

It doesn’t help. If he shouts or whispers, the
volume is the same and echoes calm above the crowd which is quite as soon as he
speaks but when he stops immediately restart the monotone singing. No-one looks
at him directly. As far as he can distinguish they all stare right through him.
They seem to be robots in stead of sheep and suddenly Tork realizes where he is:
Underearth, land of illusion!

As soon as he understands
the mass starts to move. Humanity disappears to wander into less honorary expressions.
The modest inebriation changes into flaming
hate. Hot voluptuous swirling steam whirls and Tork knows that they see
him now. Ardent engorging looks and he flinches involuntary.

As if this is
the sign the first jump on the stage. He is being grasped. At first a couple of hands which he still can
beat away but soon it become too many. The stick is knocked off, the belt with
the knife grabbed from his waist and he is being pushed and kicked.

Tork stares speechless
at the joyful at him looking mass. Plain happy expectation while the slide
singing dies out slowly. He doesn’t know what to do. If it’s true that the town
liberated itself he is glad for the inhabitants, he cannot take credit for it! Probably
he thanks this praise to Jeremy, but he himself only started it at most. It’s
the Council that has to be granted. It seems that they had the chance to beat
the demons or otherwise the suppressors are hiding after he and Gabi escaped what
means that the danger still exists without the inhabitants know of it. But if
the demons keep the town still airtight closed, how do these people know about
it?

Tork cannot just
walk away to get Gabi. The crowd waits and expects him to speech, to comfort
them and probably free them as well. They demand a power he doesn’t possess.

The collected
people become restless because of his silence. A suppressed noise that slowly
becomes louder until someone shouts: ‘Make us free! Make us free!’ Tork lifts
his hands and it becomes quite.

He expects that
only the first rows can understand him but to his surprise his voice echoes fortified
a thousand fold and reaches easily the whole crowd.

The mass
demands his attention and Tork can only tell the truth.

- ‘I thank you
for your trust, but I don’t have the power to liberate. Only the Gods can, to
whom I am going and will do everything to make you free. I don’t want to arouse
false hope. The town liberated itself. I gave the start but the honor is for
the Council or perhaps all inhabitants together. I left the town before it was
liberated. They did it themselves like you also can. I will plea your case before
the Gods but then I have to know who you are. How it comes that you are united
here and who brought you together.’

annual global event for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a grassroots organization that brings communities together to call for environmental, social, and political change within the framework of peace and sustainability. An event that began primarily with poet organizers, 100 Thousand Poets for Change has grown into an interdisciplinary coalition with year round events which includes musicians, dancers, mimes, painters and photographers from around the world.

Local issues are still key to this massive global event as communities around the world raise their voices on issues such as homelessness, global warming, education, racism and censorship through concerts, readings, lectures, workshops, flash mobs, theater performances and other actions.

But these locally focused events have taken on a more continuous and expansive form through the new disciplines represented this year. For example, photographers are making a long-term project out of the event; they will document the involvement of their communities and explore connections with the broader global issues to turn into future exhibits. More and more organizers and participants of the one day, annual event are making plans to continue their actions after September 29. Many have formed groups in their cities that will continue to work year-round towards the goals their community seeks.

“Peace and sustainability are major concerns worldwide, and the guiding principles for this global event,” said Michael Rothenberg, Co-Founder of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. “We are in a world where it isn't just one issue that needs to be addressed. A common ground is built through this global compilation of local stories, which is how we create a true narrative for discourse to inform the future.”

More than 200 hundred bands will be performing around the world, from Los Angeles, New Orleans and Detroit to Serbia, Nigeria and Italy. The musicians involved in this movement are once again using their songs and performances to try to communicate their concerns to the world. As Ross Altman, singer-songwriter, activist and educator, reminds us: “from Plato, who banned [musicians] from the Republic, to Putin, who had Russian punk band members of Pussy Riot arrested, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for a song prayer, musicians throughout history have been regarded as a danger and threat to change the social order.”

In addition to the hundreds of musicians expressing themselves through song, numerous Mimes for Change events in Egypt, Turkey and Uruguay will take place in addition to the day long poetry festivals in Los Angeles, Guatemala City, Pune, India, La Plata, Argentina and Genoa, Italy; thousands of musicians, poets and artists are participating around the world, totaling nearly 800 events globally, including:

• 25 different events in the San Francisco Bay Area, the birthplace of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, including poetry readings by Beat Legend Michael McClure, former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass and other major poets at the famed Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

• In New Orleans, 15 live bands will perform to raise funds for the APEX Youth Center and Homegrown Harvest Music and Arts Festival

• In Hollywood, Florida, Global Vibes will host an event called, “War Destroys Children’s Lives” at two venues and feature over 15 “Bands for Change”

• Peace On Streets, R.O.A.D., Tasker Elite and SHARP will host performance artists, poets, musicians, hip hop artists and various youth and parent groups who will perform and lead workshops throughout Philadelphia to bring awareness to the ongoing problem of street violence in their city

• Wordstock, a 3-day festival at the Bamboo Arts and Celebration Center in De Leon Springs, FL will include poetry slams, concerts, and an art exhibition focusing on images of war and peace

• The Occupy Wall Street Poetry group kicks off a weekend of events in New York City with a poetry reading at the famous St. Mark’s Poetry Project

• In Jamaica, a week long Street Dub Vibe series called “Tell the Children the Truth” will include concerts, spoken word performances, art exhibits, lectures and workshops to bring attention to the damaging culture of secrecy and denial surrounding the abuse, poverty and illiteracy impacting the nation’s children and destroying their future.

• Poetry and peace gatherings are planned in the strife-torn cities of Kabul and

Jalalabad, Afghanistan

• In Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, poets, musicians and mime artists,in response to violence in the world and the major changes taking place in the Arab World, will perform in public spaces and theaters and explore new ways to communicate their concerns, and their roles as artists, in influencing the future of their country

• In Volos, Greece, there will be 5 days of poetry and music events, including an

exhibition of photography looking at the new phenomenon of homelessness in Greece

• An event in Blackpool, England will celebrate activist poets and writers of past

generations through a special performance of Bullets and Daffodils, a play about the life of peace poet Wilfred Owen

Organizers and participants are hoping through their actions and events to seize and redirect the political and social dialogue of the day and turn the narrative of civilization towards peace and sustainability. Those that want to get involved can visit www.100tpc.org to find an event near them or sign up to organize one in their area.

About 100 Thousand Poets for Change

100 Thousand Poets for Change began in Sonoma County, Calif. The official

Headquarters’ Event will take place at the Arlene Francis Center in downtown Santa Rosa and will feature poetry readings, group meditations, workshops, and music and dance of various styles including hip hop, flamenco, African drums, reggae, salsa, folk and more. The HQ event will also live-stream other 100 Thousand Poets for Change events worldwide. This 3-day event is sponsored by the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County and the Sonoma County Arts Council.

Immediately following September 29th, all documentation on the 100TPC.org website, which will include specific event pages with photos, video and other documentation compiled by each city coordinator, will be preserved by Stanford University in California. Stanford recognized 100 Thousand Poets for Change in 2011 as an historical event, the largest poetry reading in history. They will continue to archive the complete contents of 100TPC.org, as part of their digital archiving program LOCKSS.

Co-Founder Michael Rothenberg (walterblue@bigbridge.org) is a widely known poet, editor of the online literary magazine Bigbridge.org and an environmental activist based in Northern California. Terri Carrion is a poet, translator, photographer, and editor and visual designer for BigBridge.org.

He stops at the
smooth polished edge and looks at the fifty yards further uprising hill. Then
he studies the varnished floor. Carefully he steps with one foot on the wood and
presses. The construction is solid and can easily carry his weight. No pretentious
trap that succumbs as soon as he stands on it.

Over the level laid
planks he creeps towards the hill. It doesn’t seem wise to follow the floor without
precaution why he crawls on hand and feet upwards against the slope, peeks over
the edge as soon as he reaches the vertex and tigers over the flat summit until
he is above the construction again.

The floor follows
the complete length of the hill until it passes at the end again in grassy
plains, but what surprises him the most is the cloth hanging over the entire width. No more then ten yards from him and
he will have to pass it. With high probability the path is behind the curtain. Tork
lowers himself till on the floor and creeps silently towards the mysterious
drapery, peeks carefully through a crack and holds his breath involuntary.

The building
construction is a stage: a place for giant performances. In front stands a
crowd, so creepy silent that he feels his spine tingling. The mass stretches
for miles and disappears in grey mist. It seems to wait for something; walls of
tightly together standing and tensed faces stare hypnotized at the empty stage.

Tork looks over
his shoulder, afraid to be surprised by what they are waiting for when the
curtain suddenly swings open. He freezes and looks surprised at the crowd that
starts a multi-headed hymn.

- ‘Hallelujah!’
He believes to hear his name during the solemn swelling song. ‘The Highest... Release us!’

Tork plies to let
the text sink in and blushes for embarrassment. It’s an ode for him, to his
appearance. He is the Messiah who descended to free Underearth. The first town
was already liberated, they sing, and is being managed by the disciple Jeremy and
his twelve-men Council on His name while they wait for his return as soon as all
Underearth is free of slavery.